Schoolboy tells of being forced into Congo army
A former child soldier told a war crimes hearing today how he was snatched off the street and sent to a military camp.
The un-named boy, who was 10 or 11 at the time, was the first witness at the trial of Congo warlord Thomas Lubanga.
He told the International Criminal Court in The Hague he was on his way home from school in the town of Fataki, eastern Congo, when he was taken.
The boy said soldiers who seized him and his friends were fighters from Lubanga’s Union of Congolese Patriots.
“They said the country was in trouble and that young people must mobilise to save the country,” he said, speaking through an interpreter. “I said that we were still very small.”
His voice and image were distorted in video transmissions to the public gallery and on an internet feed. He sat behind a screen while testifying to protect his identity.
His testimony was interrupted when he told prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that answering questions about the military camp “will put me in a delicate position.” He did not elaborate, but presiding Judge Adrian Fulford told a lawyer representing victims to speak to him about the issue of incriminating himself in his testimony.
Lubanga’s trial is the first since the court was created in The Hague in 2002 as the world’s only permanent war crimes tribunal, and the proceedings are being closely watched for the precedents they are setting.
Prosecutors accuse Lubanga of recruiting hundreds of children into his militia and sending them to fight and die in brutal conflicts in the Ituri region of eastern Congo in 2002-2003.
Lubanga is charged with “enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15” into his militia and “using them to participate actively in hostilities.”
The penalty is not spelled out for specific crimes. But in general, the maximum sentence for any war crime is 30 years, unless it is deemed to be of exceptional gravity in which case a life sentence may be imposed.
It is the first case to be tried solely on the illegal use of child soldiers.
Lubanga has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers argue that he was arrested and sent to The Hague because he was a political opponent of President Joseph Kabila. They also say he cannot get a fair trial because prosecutors have not disclosed all their evidence, some of which could help clear Lubanga.
His French lawyer , Catherine Mabille, complained to the judges that a screen set up in the Congolese town of Bunia for the public to follow the trial broadcast only the opening statements by prosecutors and lawyers for victims, but was switched off when she made her opening address.
